


falls

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Implied Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Implied Connor/North (Detroit: Become Human), M/M, Multi, Post-Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Pre-Relationship, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 01:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16923618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: Trust was a choice, a black or white option, no shades of gray. You either trusted or you didn’t. Some said that trust was earned and returned, but in North’s experience it was given and rewarded or it was given and punished. There was only one way to find out which you’d end up with.





	falls

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [drabble-a-thon](https://detroitbecomehuman.dreamwidth.org/2655.html) going on over on the [Detroit: Become Human Dreamwidth comm](https://detroitbecomehuman.dreamwidth.org) for the prompt: Markus/Connor/North, "The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." ― Ernest Hemingway

North noticed the way Connor watched them and wondered whether he realized how obvious he was about it. For the so-called deviant hunter, it was surprisingly forthright, though not in the slightest refreshing. She knew what it was like to be watched and she didn’t like it, had never liked it, even before she knew anything beyond her programming. But he never did anything more than look at them, curious, polite, distant, a member of Markus’s inner circle without ever pushing for anything else. So many in New Jericho and free Detroit wanted things from them: leadership, answers, comfort. Only one of those things could North give to them and Markus was a good sport about the rest.

So many wanted something, demanded it, and Connor, as yet, did not. North couldn’t trust a person without an angle and even staring at Connor straight on, she couldn’t find it.

In some ways, he still seemed every inch the machine they’d all feared for that short, terrible time in November of last year. Sometimes, she wondered if he’d truly deviated at all. It was only Markus’s insistence that Connor was with them that kept her from turning the tables on him, interrogating him until he spilled whatever truths he kept locked away. If he was deviant, he was sure to have them. It was only machines that didn’t have secrets to pry free.

“I’ve seen you looking,” North said in a harsh, discreet whisper, grabbing Connor by the arm and pulling him aside as the rest spilled out of the conference room that served as the heart of their command center. Markus, flanked by a handful of androids in the process of requesting additional support for a shelter outside the city’s new-built walls, hardly noticed that North and Connor had remained behind. Just as she intended. “At Markus.” Her eyes dipped to the floor, caught sight of the pristine polish of Connor’s shoes, and rose to his eyes again. North made sure the relationship she shared with Markus remained private, a thing for them alone. She wasn’t sure she liked the thought of someone seeing it, thinking about it, having an opinion about it. If Connor was even capable of having an opinion about it. “And at me.”

He said nothing and his features remained bland, but North knew people even if she didn’t yet understand Connor. His jaw tensed just so. His shoulders squared a fraction of a fraction of an inch, so minuscule that she’d have discarded the observation with anyone else. She’d struck at something in him, taken him by surprise, and for that reason alone, her fears relaxed their grip. Surprise was good.

You couldn’t surprise a machine.

“I’m sorry that I’ve made you uncomfortable,” Connor replied, stiff. “That wasn’t my intention.”

North crossed her arms and shifted her weight. Eyes narrowing, she asked, “Then what was your intention?”

He looked away and scrubbed his hand across the back of his neck. It was the first time she’d seen him do anything that even remotely suggested he was nervous or uncertain. “I didn’t realize I was doing it,” he said. “Not until you mentioned it. I’ll make sure it won’t happen again.”

That. It wasn’t quite what she was expecting to here. The response that sat on her tongue— _well, I want you to stop it_ —was all wrong, didn’t fit in the slightest with his response. She’d come into this expecting a fight. Finding herself with the opposite, all she could do was flounder. “Good,” she said, though that didn’t seem right either. There’d been no artifice in Connor’s answer and now he did seem genuinely embarrassed, couldn’t even look her in the eye when he’d never had that problem before. In fact, the way his mouth pulled down at the corner, she wondered if he wasn’t more than just embarrassed. So yeah, maybe she had come into this spoiling for a confrontation, but now that that was off the table, she wanted something else entirely. So, yeah. Good wasn’t the right word. Good didn’t get her answers. Good closed a door that she, at this moment, wasn’t sure she wanted closed. “Why were you…?” Now she was the one squaring her shoulders. “Why did you do it?”

Ducking and shaking his head, he said nothing. Again. And North found herself annoyed and impatient for his answer. _This is his secret_ , she thought. This was something she could believe in.

She wanted to know what it was in the same way she’d wanted to kiss Markus all those months ago. It was as vital to her to have it as it was to have Markus’s touch on her body, the only touch she’d ever wanted. And she found, too, with sudden, sharp clarity, that she wanted Connor’s eyes on them. No more of this new and uncomfortable shying away. Reaching out, she lifted his chin with her fingertips. Made him look at her again. _Tell me the truth,_ she demanded without saying anything at all. _Tell me what you want from us._

Depending on his answer, she might even give it to him, a thought she never would have harbored before.

“Have you seen yourselves?” Connor asked, a dodge, but not one North was unfamiliar with. She knew others admired her beauty, manufactured though it was, and North herself admired Markus’s, less cynically targeted but no less arresting for it. Somehow, though, North got the feeling that wasn’t what Connor was referring to at all.

Trust was a choice, a black or white option, no shades of gray. You either trusted or you didn’t. Some said that trust was earned and returned, but in North’s experience it was given and rewarded or it was given and punished. There was only one way to find out which you’d end up with.

She lifted her hand, palm out, the same as she’d done with Markus once upon a time. It tripped the same nervous reaction she’d felt that first time. At least she would soon know whether she would be rewarded or punished.

“No,” she answered, determined. “Show me.”


End file.
